


Selene Chronicles: Chain of Unbroken Beginnings

by Jayguile



Series: Selene Chronicles [1]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Lots of OCs - Freeform, in fact this part is mostly ocs, largely original work (but set in the same universe), technically an AU?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-09 05:04:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13474266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jayguile/pseuds/Jayguile
Summary: The Sol Dimension is much like that of Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends, but there are still many vast differences. One of these differences is that the Knuckles Clan was never wiped out, and their descendants have continued as Guardians to this day, protecting their world's version of the Master Emerald - the Selene Emerald.This story is about one of those descendants, a man whose destiny was irrevocably linked to hers, and all the people bound with them to the same string of fate.(Warning: This story contains many, many, MANY OCs. Don't like, don't read.)





	Selene Chronicles: Chain of Unbroken Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, all! This is the first fic I've ever published, but not the first I've ever written. This story is something I've had in my head for literally years, and I'm really excited to finally be able to turn it into a reality.
> 
> Without further ado, enjoy the first chapter!

“...we were struck by two things about the Echidnas of the Angel Archipelago; Firstly, their fierce protectiveness of their island’s Treasure, particularly of what they claim is a Jewel four feet tall, which they have dubbed the ‘Selene Emerald’; and secondly, their absolute and seemingly unshakable belief in the power of ‘Fate’...”

-Journal entry by a member of a U.F. exploration party, 1674 A.S.

 

“The power to take lives is insignificant next to the power to save them.”

-First Tenet of the Guardian's Code

  
  


* * *

  


The alarm clock went off, blaring noise that echoed off the plain white walls of the small bedroom. A hand reached out of the covers on the bed next to it, groping around for the snooze button; then, failing in that, it ripped the power cord out of the clock and flung it across the room.

 

The hand's owner, an echidna in her early twenties, pulled off the covers and sat up in bed, blinking her eyes a few times as she tried to get accustomed to the morning light filtering through the windows into the room. She was wearing nothing but black lacy panties and a bra, the latter of which only partially covered up her Guardian’s birthmark - a crescent moon, present on the chest of everyone descended from the original Guardians of the Selene Emerald.

 

She momentarily glanced at her nightstand, trying to see what time it was on the alarm clock, before remembering that said clock was lying on the ground across the room. Grumbling, she slid out of bed to check the time on her phone, which was charging on a table on the other side of the room.

 

Switching on the phone, she saw through still-half-closed eyes that it was 6:50 AM, on February 17th, 2192.

 

The woman's name was Qyr-Maen jai Mazna - Carmen to most - and though she didn't know it, she would remember this date for the rest of her life as the day she was started on her destiny, a destiny that would see ancient secrets unearthed, friends revealed to be enemies, and things created the likes of which the world had never seen before.

 

But, as is typical with the twists and turns of fate, she didn't wake up thinking that day would be anything special.

 

For her, it was Monday.

 

Carmen cursed under her breath as she saw that she was likely going to have to skip, or at least curtail, breakfast. Her post for today was roughly 30 minutes away, and she had to be there by 7:50 sharp.

 

_ Goddamn idiots _ , she thought bitterly.  _ Why do they need me up at such an unreasonable hour to guard some old ruins? What the hell could even be in there that needs to be guarded that badly? _ She let out a sigh of dismay.  _ And why did I even choose to become a lowly sentry in the first place? _

 

As soon as she thought the question, the answer vividly came into her mind. It was almost a reflex, every time she asked herself, to immediately remind herself of exactly why she had chosen this life. It was almost impossible not to. The answer was everywhere, a commonplace symbol on the island, sort of a good luck charm. She saw it hanging in people's homes, on books, in doctor's offices, on billboards in the city, in temples. She even saw the answer to the question whenever she looked in the mirror, after stepping out of the shower in the morning.

 

That crescent moon. The Mark of the Guardians.

 

Ever since she was a little girl, when she had first learned what the mark was a symbol of, she had yearned to be one of them. One of the brave echidnas that seemed to be larger than life, who went on fantastic adventures, risking life and limb to protect the innocent and defend the island's sacred treasure, the Selene Emerald. One of the order which she had seen on TV countless times when she was younger, the men impossibly handsome, the women seeming to move with the grace of goddesses. One of the sacred organization, stretching back to before recorded history, of which her parents, and grandparents, and great-grandparents, had been a part of.

 

She wanted to be one of them. She wanted it so badly the aching desire consumed her in most of her waking moments.

 

She wanted to be part of their world.

 

She wanted to be a Guardian.

 

Her shoulders slumped slightly as she sighed. Even in such a well-known and influential family as hers, one that had served as Guardians for generations, they still wouldn't accept her based on connections alone. She would need to prove herself first. And seeing as how she needed a way to work up the ranks and eventually earn the attention of the Guardians, a job as a common sentry would be a good place to start. After enough time, she might be promoted, at which point she’d be in a better position to ask them for a job. 

 

The plan had seemed to be a good one - in theory. In practice, she’d been serving for four years, ever since she was 21, and had yet to be even mentioned for a promotion. Despite the fact that she hated the job with a burning passion, she’d worked harder than she thought was even possible for all that time. She always ran faster, climbed higher, flew farther than anyone else was ever willing to. And for what? Sometimes, she found herself wondering why exactly it was she wanted to become a Guardian at all.

 

_ No, no, no,  _ she scolded herself,  _ don't think about why, don't think about a reason. Just think about doing it, I can think about why I want to after I achieve it. Nothing in my life will ever be more important. Look to the future, look to the future. _

 

The singular thought giving her the resolve to carry on, she threw on her uniform, wolfed down a meager breakfast of eggs and toast, and within half an hour was in the car heading to the ancient ruins deep in the jungle where she'd been stationed for the day. After checking in at the gate and parking her car, she trudged up the winding hill, dew-covered grass brushing against her leg with every step, until she could finally see at the top the ancient stone ziggurat, surrounded by rectangular posts about a meter high.

 

Her assigned partner, a younger woman whose name Carmen didn't know, sat on one of these posts, giving her a brief greeting as she saw her before returning to idly checking her phone and chewing her gum noisily. She had been working this station for about a month now - Carmen had seen how her attitude had gradually changed over the weeks as she realized the true nature of her job, from excited optimism for the first week, to disappointment and boredom the second, to flat-out disinterested cynicism by the third.

 

She was actually impressed. Three weeks was the longest Carmen had ever seen anyone go in this job before it sucked their soul out completely.

 

Standing in front of the temple, Carmen kicked some rocks around idly, not knowing what else to do. It was the same thing every day since they'd been assigned to this location. They were supposed to be guarding this place, but they both knew there was nothing to guard. Nobody ever came to this ruined old temple, deep in the jungle off the beaten path, and even if somebody did there was nothing of any real value worth stealing. Sure, the temple might be old, but there were a dozen of these ancient temples strewn around the island, in less disrepair and actually containing valuable treasure. There was no reason to be guarding this one. It didn't make sense, but then, few things about her life did seem to make any sense.

 

The only thing that broke her constant stream of thoughts was the periodic popping noise as the other woman blew another bubble with her gum every thirty seconds or so. In times like this, Carmen liked to meditate, to keep from going insane. Brushing dust off the stone slab she was standing on, she sat down cross-legged, closed both eyes, took a deep breath, and put both hands on the ground.

 

Earth. It was the element of magic she had chosen to specialize in, and for good reason - it was the element that echidnas tended to naturally be the best at. The Earth was the firmament of everything that every living thing depended on. Wars, battles, conflicts - despite the constant struggling of every organism on the planet, the earth they stood on was firm, unmoving, unchanging.  Carmen always meditated on the earth whenever she could feel herself getting agitated or restless, and it always helped her collect herself together.

 

After about two minutes, she opened her eyes, feeling a lot more relaxed and focused. But her meditation only had the effect of improving her spirits for a little while, and after a few minutes she had sunken back into the background state of soulless boredom that the job seemed to induce by its very nature. She checked her phone to see how long she'd been there, hoping it was close to lunchtime so she could return to the main office and at least have some kind of social contact with another person.

 

_ Only one and a half hours? _ Carmen groaned to herself.  _ This job crawls along slower than a line at an amusement park! _

 

Hoping desperately to be able to strike up a conversation to pass the time, she walked over to where her partner was sitting and opened her mouth to speak, but no sooner were her hopes dashed when the woman hopped off the post, announced she needed to take a piss, and without another word jogged off into the woods. 

 

Well, that was that. Now she was completely alone.

 

Carmen was actively fighting off the urge to bash her brains out against one of the rocks, but in that moment she realized she had never really taken a good look at the inside of the temple she'd been trying to defend this entire time. Since her partner was off trying to find someplace to relieve herself and she really had nothing better to do, this might not be a bad time to take a look.

 

She walked through the stone gateway and looked around the interior of the circular room, about 10 meters in radius. Despite how it looked from the outside, it was in surprisingly good shape. Aside from the area near the doorway where the rain and wind had gotten in, the ancient carvings on the wall were all still there, along with the ancient Echidna inscriptions. Carmen could only understand a little of the ancient language, because it bore little resemblance to the modern-day language of the island, but she could make out enough to tell that the frieze depicted ancient stories of the Selene Emerald, and the Guardians of the past that had always protected it.

 

Carmen let her eyes sweep across the room, taking in all of the ancient stone artwork. She might have no respect for this job, but she appreciated the chance to get up close and personal to a work of history such as this, even if it wasn't the most famous or elegant one on the island. To be honest, she was pretty sure the job might not have been so unbearable if it had occurred to her at some point before now to come inside the temple.

 

As she scanned the room, taking in the sight of the stone carvings, her eyes immediately jumped to a slab of stone on the floor that looked different from the rest of the temple. At first, she thought she'd imagined the difference, but she definitely hadn't; it was more blue than the surrounding tiles, and looked newer too. It didn't fit in at all with the rest of the floor tiles, and it almost looked like some kind of hatch or cover. It could've just been a shoddily done repair - those were pretty common, especially in temples not open to the public. 

 

_ Still, it really looks like some kind of trapdoor, _ ,Carmen thought.  _ Maybe it's just a maintenance tunnel… or maybe- _

 

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone stepping on a twig outside the doorway. Carmen turned around, expecting to see her partner back from the forest. What she saw, instead, was a stranger in a gray hoodie, face covered, standing in front of the stone gateway.

 

The stranger didn't seem to notice her, as he just stared at his shoes, kicking a pebble and watching it skitter across the stone steps before it landed in the grass. Carmen guessed that he was younger than she was, but not by more than a couple years, and judging by the pointed ears on his hoodie the man was probably a wolf or bat, though the way he was turned away from her she couldn't properly see his face.

 

Carmen had no idea what reason the stranger had for coming here, nor how he had found the temple far off the beaten track, but one thing was for sure: He seemed completely uninterested in anything inside the temple, and didn't even look like he completely realized where he was. This man wasn't a threat, and there was no reason to detain him.

 

Not that Carmen cared about any of that.

 

_ Luck must be on my side today! _ Carmen thought giddily, her face breaking into a wide grin.  _ Capturing this dumbass is sure to count positively on my record! Who knows, maybe this will even be the capture that gets the attention of the Guardian Council and starts my climb upwards! _

 

After taking a moment to collect herself, she planted her feet firmly on the ground, pointed a finger at the man, and shouted in an authoritative tone, “You, there! Outsider! This area is off limits! Your presence here is breaking the law! Now, you have two choices. You can either come quietly with me, or you can try to fight me, but I warn you,” she snarled menacingly as she raised her fists, crackling with red energy, “you won't last very long against-”

 

Carmen paused for a second, confused by the fact that the man no longer seemed to be there, before realizing that he had run away while she was giving her speech. In an instant, she was tearing across the ancient stone floor and running into the jungle faster than she thought she was capable of running, the exciting possibility of a new job, of a new life, pushing her forward.

 

Scrambling through the dense undergrowth, it wasn't long before she spotted the man about thirty or forty feet ahead of her. He seemed to be more fleet-footed than she was, and though she was fast, she couldn't run as fast and as nimbly through the piles of leaves and fallen logs as he could. Between his speed and his head start, it seemed impossible that she would be able to catch him.

 

But she wasn't going to give up yet. She might not have been able to reach him physically, but she still had a way to trap him, even from this far away. Taking another deep breath, she felt her hands tingling with energy, once again feeling that familiar state of hyperfocus, channeling everything in her mind towards the one goal she was trying to accomplish.

 

“You're not going to get away from me!” she called out to the intruder as she slammed her fists into the ground, sending a surge of red energy racing along the ground towards him. The line of energy closed in a circle on the ground around him, and suddenly the ground rose up, forming a circular wall six feet tall, trapping him inside.

 

_ Whew… I was so focused on catching him, I forgot to put a roof on it, _ Carmen thought as she kept running towards him.  _ But that's probably not a big deal. The prison mound is an inch thick and as strong as a brick wall. There's no way he'd be able to- _

 

Carmen cut the thought short, trying to avoid jinxing it, but it was too late. No sooner did she reach the prison mound on the hill than she saw the man spread out black wings from his back and fly out through the top. Apparently her hunch that he was a bat was correct, and since Carmen's magic couldn't reach off the ground at that distance, she wouldn't be able to use it to catch him. He flew twenty feet above the ground, the treetops brushing against the soles of his shoes.

 

But she knew better than to rely on magic to solve every problem. Finding the widest tree trunk in the area, she scrambled to climb it, the barbs on her knuckles digging into the wood as she moved higher and higher up, until she could see the bat, some fifty feet away.

 

Now came the tricky part. Kicking off the tree as hard as she could, she stretched out her arms and glided through the air at high speed, the unique aerodynamic properties of her fur keeping her in the air as she closed in on the bat, who seemed unaware of the fact that she was getting closer.

 

_ Fifteen feet away… ten feet… five feet, _ she thought to herself, mentally gauging the distance between them as she made sure to stay behind him. At the precise moment when he flapped his wings again, she angled her body down slightly and dove down towards him, swooping down at incredible speed. 

 

At the last second, the bat looked over his shoulder and saw her hurtling towards him, but it was already too late. She body-slammed him in the back, destabilizing his flight and knocking him out of the air.

 

Curling her body up slightly to fall faster, Carmen swooped down again and caught the bat before he hit the ground, restraining him with both arms as her feet hit the ground again. With one swift, practiced motion, she pushed on his back, pinning him to the ground and holding his arms behind his back. Despite the fact that he had tried to run away before, he seemed to have given up now, making no effort to wriggle free of her grasp.

 

Breathing hard, Carmen was exhilarated from the thrill of the chase. Even if it was over quickly, this was still the most excitement she'd experienced in the entire time she'd worked this crappy job. She took a moment to compose her face back into the intimidating grimace she knew it should be, before leaning down and pulling off the bat’s hood so she could see his full face. He had unkempt white fur with bangs and dull, sunken green eyes. Looking directly at him, she asked the bat, “Do you know why I captured you?”

 

He closed his eyes and silently nodded, his face completely unreadable. Carmen continued, “You are under arrest, charged with illegally entering a Class-E protected building and resisting arrest.” As she spoke, she scooped up some dirt with her hands, which could dig through the earth with ease, and covered his wrists and wingjoints with it. Applying a little more magic, the dirt immediately hardened like rock, effectively forming handcuffs.

 

Standing up and roughly pulling him to his feet, she grabbed him by the arm and led him behind her as she took him back towards the main office in the area.  _ Maybe fate does have something planned for me today, _ Carmen thought, not yet knowing exactly how right she was.


End file.
